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Cartoon unfairly tarred all Democrats

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The March 17 editorial cartoon by Eric Allie was a new low. It showed New York Mayor Bill de
Blasio, accompanied by hard-hatted teachers and union members, blocking the doors of a building
labeled “Charter Schools.” No problem there, since the mayor is in a political conflict with a
charter-school operator and, despite the fact that he has approved the vast majority of
charter-school applications, this disagreement has led to a discussion of charter schools vs.
traditional public schools.

For the sake of our children, it is indeed one that needs to take place. I will not take sides
in this matter here.

What makes this cartoon so vile is that it is labeled “Another Democrat, another stand in the
schoolhouse door,” equating the mayor’s taking a stand against a few charter schools with former
Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who blocked the doors of a schoolhouse to keep African-American
children from entering.

Certainly Allie knows that there is no similarity in the intentions of the two.

I also would remind Allie that it was former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a member of the
cabinet of Democratic President John F. Kennedy, who opened the door to school integration in the
South, and that it was President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, who ushered through the Civil
Rights and Voting Rights acts of the 1960s. He did, in fact, do this with the help of Northern
Democratic liberals and Northern moderate Republicans such as Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois.

I would also remind Allie that these political actions not only granted rights to
African-Americans, but also caused hateful Southern Democrats to leave the party, ending the
Democrats’ control of “The Solid South.”

With their departure, the South became, with few exceptions, solid Republican. Today their
version of blocking school-door entries is the more-subtle voter-suppression legislation.